


ain't it always been the same

by nondz (pinkjook)



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Character Study, Fast and Loose Portrayal of Historic Events, Jewish Bucky Barnes, Multi, Slice of Life, The Howlies Are Just Marvel-Verse Inglorious Basterds, Time Travel, nazi lives don't matter you heard it here first!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:02:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23332084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkjook/pseuds/nondz
Summary: Steve rocks back on his heels and crosses his arms.“Now, hold on, let’s think about this,” Bucky says.“I am thinkin’,” Steve protests.
Relationships: Howling Commandos & Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers & Avengers Team
Comments: 85
Kudos: 255





	1. of the friends, and the love i used to know

**Author's Note:**

> if this looks familiar it's because i posted it then deleted it like forever ago. but just to reiterate: my thesis is that the howlies are the marvel-verse inglorious basterds, and that the avengers are punk bitches who need to learn to kill nazis. thank you.
> 
> fic and chapter titles are from nathaniel rateliff and the night sweats' "still out there running."

-~-

Dum Dum

“I’m gonna kick your goddamn head in!” Barnes is yelling. “Do you hear me, Steve? I’m gonna beat you right to death and I ain’t ever gonna feel bad about it!” 

Rogers doesn’t respond. Maybe he can’t; he’s laughing so hard he’s damn near tipping over, falling out of reach more than purposefully dodging Barnes when he lunges. He’s wheezing so hard Dum Dum can almost imagine him as a little guy with asthma, like Barnes swears he used to be, hand on the Bible.

Course, right after he said that Rogers pointed out that Barnes was Jewish and didn’t care much for the Bible either way. 

Whole scene ended mighty similar to the one happening right now, actually. 

“Stop _dodging_ you fucking asshole, get over here and let me—” Barnes is spitting, arms swinging out wildly. They’re both slipping in the mud, legs skidding out like deer on ice, dancing around each other. 

“How long do you think they will be doing this?” Dernier asks. He sounds bored out of his skull. 

Dum Dum can sympathize. “Dunno,” he sighs. “Til one of ‘em gets tired, I suppose.” 

They pause. Wait a while, watch the show. Barnes has got his arms around Rogers, now, and he’s wrestling him to the ground. Rogers goes pretty easy: he’s laughing just as hard as before, maybe harder. Barnes is still yelling, though Dum Dum can’t make heads or tails of it. He’s dragging up things from back in Brooklyn, now, talking about nuns and asthma cigarettes and someone named Liam O’Connelly. 

“What’s Barnes pissed about?” Gabe asks.

Dum Dum sighs. “Rogers did something in a briefing, I don’t know. Said some shit to someone, you know how he is.” 

Gabe snorts. It sounds wet, like maybe some snot’s coming out of his nose. Dernier makes a face but Dum Dum just rolls his eyes. They’ve all been fighting off the same cold for weeks now, the temperature dropping fast and giving them sore throats and quiet fevers and aching bodies. 

All of them except for the two assholes wrestling in the mud, anyway. 

“Hey, Sarge! Cap! Come on, you’ll wake up the whole damn camp,” Gabe hollers, voice going a little hoarse in the middle of the sentence. 

And it’s true, too. They’ve been fortunate enough to post up with a squad of British troops for the week, take over a couple empty cots in their tents. Dum Dum doesn’t know if it’s because they’re British or what, but the whole damn camp is so uptight he wouldn’t put it past them to come out and shoot Barnes and Rogers right in their damn fool heads for causing so much racket. Hell, at this point Dum Dum might help them.

“How’re they still going?” Falsworth asks, popping up out of the dark with Morita at his shoulder. 

“I’m exhausted just watching ‘em,” Morita agrees. He plops down next to Dum Dum on the ground by the fire. Swipes the coffee cup right out of Dum Dum’s hand. Dum Dum doesn’t kick up any fuss about it, just lets it happen. Feels too goddamn tired to move, anyway. 

Rogers and Barnes have ignored the group of them so thoroughly it’s like they’re not even there at all. Dum Dum thinks maybe they’ve blocked the whole world out, thinks maybe _they_ think they’re twelve years old again and wrestling on the floor between couch cushions, waiting for one of their Ma’s to come in and tell them to knock that shit off. God, is this what it’s come to? Is Dum Dum going to have to go over there and be their mother for the night?

“You’re up, baby,” Gabe cackles, all mocking glee. 

“Go fuck yourself,” Dum Dum says. He hauls himself to his feet, dusts his hat off, sets it back on his head. Learned a long time ago that when he leaves it alone the boys get at it, leave it places damn near impossible to find. Last time he forgot to take it with him he found it at the very top of a pine tree. Had to halt the whole damn march for an hour so he could climb up and get it back. 

Dum Dum stomps right over to his Captain and his Sergeant and stands there with his hands on his hips while they roll around in the mud. Kicks at their legs gentle at first and then harder when they don’t respond at all. Really whacks at ‘em. Finally, they look up at him, Barnes’ fingers in Rogers’ ear, Rogers’ mouth open and hawking spit onto Barnes’ face.

“Goddamn national icons, the two of you. Jesus fucking Christ,” Dum Dum says.

Rogers opens his mouth up to respond but Barnes shoves his fingers in before he can. Rogers’ whole face screws up. Probably tasting his own earwax, Dum Dum guesses. Jesus fuck. 

“You look like idiots,” Dum Dum continues. 

_"You_ look like an idiot,” Barnes counters, only paying half attention to the conversation. The rest of his focus is on keeping Rogers from squirming away. He locks his legs hard around Rogers’ knees and keeps him there. Rogers bites down hard on his fingers and Barnes jerks his hand away quicker than lightning. “Ow, _fuck,_ Steve you asshole, I think I’m fucking bleeding—”

“Keep your dirty goddamn paws out of my mouth and maybe I won’t bite ‘em, you ever think of that?” Rogers hisses, wriggling out from Barnes’ hold like he’s coated in grease. He flops down on his back next to Barnes, right in the mud, and then twists his shoulders like he’s trying to rub the dirt in. 

“Quit that,” Barnes says. “You wreck that outfit they’ll only give you another one and I’ll make sure it’s even worse.” 

“It’s just so fuck ugly,” Rogers whines. “Hurts my eyes to look at, Buck, hand to God!”

“Oh, that’s right, it offends your delicate artistic sensibilities, yeah, I forgot.” Barnes rolls his eyes for long enough Dum Dum thinks they might get stuck that way. “Not like you don’t complain about it every other day.”

Rogers purses his lips. “I just don’t understand why you all get to choose your uniforms and I can’t.” He looks about seven years old, all baby blues and dirty cheeks and pouting frown. 

“Karma,” Barnes says, grimly satisfied. “It’s my fucking karmic reward.” 

“For what, huh? For what?” Rogers says, punching at Barnes’ shoulder. 

“Putting up with you,” Barnes says, peaceably. 

“Jesus Christ,” Dum Dum says. 

He turns on his heel and goes back to the fire. Collapses back down next to Morita who hands him his coffee back without a word. “When those Brits come out and wanna take shots at them,” Dum Dum says, “I’m gonna grab my pistol and help, see if I don’t.”

Dernier reaches across Falsworth and pats Dum Dum on the shoulder sympathetically. “And we will, too, mon ami. And we will too,” he says, just as grimly determined as he is before they storm a base.

“Yeah, alright,” Dum Dum sighs, and takes a drink of his coffee. 

It’s got salt in it. 

“Oh you fucking—” Dum Dum spits. Morita’s off like a shot. Dum Dum tears after him.

  
  


-~-

Bucky

The whole squad gets written up, of course. They pissed off those British boys something good. Bucky could‘ve seen it coming, maybe, except he wasn’t thinking too clear on account of the blinding rage. God, but Steve can drive him out of his head like nothing else on Earth, that’s for certain.

Course, Phillips doesn’t think that’s a good enough excuse.

“You’re lucky I don’t demerit every last one of you,” he says, face so red Bucky thinks it just might pop off his head and explode. He can tell Steve’s thinking the same thing because his jaw’s working in that way that makes him look mad but really just means he’s trying hard not to smile. 

He doesn’t meet Steve’s eye. If he does the whole jig’s up, Bucky’ll crack up laughing and then they really will get demerits. Behind them, the boys shuffle nervously. Dum Dum gives an embarrassed little cough. 

Phillips goes on for a while, talking about honor and composure and representing your country with integrity, etcetera, etcetera. Bucky zones out after a while, lets Steve chime in with the _yes, sirs_ and _no, sirs_ and the _three bags full, sirs_. 

Back home, all that schmoozing, the kissing up to adults and teachers and the nuns down the street had been Bucky’s job, because Bucky was a year older and used to be stronger and more handsome. Better liked. Clean-nosed and charming. 

Here, Steve is Bucky’s superior officer and Bucky doesn’t have to do shit else but let Steve get chewed out for all of them. 

It’s real nice, actually. Feels a little like karma. 

“Sergeant Barnes!” Phillips snaps. 

Bucky jolts, near knocks himself over. Steve snorts loud enough for Phillips to hear and, damn, now they’re both in the shit. 

Phillips stares at them, plainly boiling with rage, and then smiles. It’s a mean smile, scarier than anything Bucky’s seen in… well, maybe a week. Doesn’t come anywhere close to touching those fucking green, lumbering undead Nazis, whatever the fuck they were. 

Maybe Bucky did take all the stupid over here to the goddamn European Theater— the fact that he’s still here and not laid up in bed at home like anyone with any sense woulda done damn near proves it— but Steve definitely brought the fucking crazy. 

“I’ve got a mission for you boys,” Phillips says, and Bucky can feel the Howlies choking down their cusses. Shit, but him and Steve are going to get jumped soon as they walk out this tent. Get their faces scrubbed right into the mud by Morita and Gabe, that’s for certain. 

“Sir?” Steve says, real hesitant. 

“There’s a forest over in the ass end of Denmark where we’re picking up some screwy readings. Some real weird shit, boys. And I had the thought just now that, well, ain’t that your specialty? Ain’t that why we keep you bozos around?” Phillips says, tapping his fingers against the rickety tent desk. 

“It does… sound in our wheelhouse, yes, sir,” Steve says, slow. 

Behind them, the Howlies shift.

“What’s the catch?” Bucky asks.

“Well, we can’t come pick you up once you’re there,” Phillips says. “We’d drop you in by plane and you’d have to come back on foot.”

Steve blinks. “Back to France?” Steve clarifies. “All the way from Denmark?”

“From the north of Denmark, yes,” Phillips says. 

“So we’re just gonna… fuckin’ hump it on foot all the way through Nazi Europe?” Bucky says. Goddamn it. Fucking goddamn it all. Fuck the Howlies, Bucky’s going to be grinding Steve’s face into the mud, nevermind the fact around half of this mess is Bucky’s fault. 

“What are we supposed to be looking for in Denmark?” Steve asks, eyebrows so far up his forehead they might fall off his head. 

Phillips shrugs. “That, boys, I do not have one good Goddamn clue about. You’ll know it when you see it, probably.”

In chorus, the Howlies start protesting.

“What the hell kind of fucked up—”

“Phillips you Goddamn candy-ass—”

“The fuck you mean we’ll know it? Know what? I don’t know my ass from my face you fucking—”

“Well, I’d better just start writing my goodbye letters now, huh, you fucking desk-sitting Goddamn—”

“Merde, putain, va te faire foutre tu—”

“Phillips,” Steve says, voice coming up over the chaos and slamming down like a hunk of metal, “that’s a Goddamn death trap of a mission.”

“And you boys have come out of worse,” Phillips says, kicking his feet up and picking up a file. “Now get out of my fucking tent.” 

They get. Bucky doesn’t get more than two steps outside before he’s being slammed down into the mud, his face jerked back and forth by someone on his back. He lets it happen.

Steve lands hard right beside him with a deep, hound-dog sigh.

“Yeah,” Bucky agrees, then chokes on mud.  
  


-~-

Steve

The plane’s shaking like it’s about to fall apart and Steve grits his teeth so they don’t chatter. Christ, but the boys haven’t quit glaring at him and Bucky in days. It’s a little funny, because it’s not like they weren’t rolling around in the dirt, too, Dum Dum and Morita slamming each other in the head with their fists and howling fit to wake the whole fucking European theatre. 

Bucky’s glaring right back at them, at the end of his rope, pissy because he hates when people are mad at him and because he hates flying, too. 

Steve nudges him but Bucky just turns his glare on him and Steve throws his hands up and sits back.

“Well, don’t we look cheery today,” Peggy says, standing up from the cockpit and walking back to where they’re all strapped in and glaring at each other. She only stumbles a little. Steve finds a smile for her. Bucky glares at him harder and then turns a beaming, dancehall grin toward Peg. 

Steve pinches his side and Bucky pinches him back harder.

“Hmph,” she says, when nobody responds. “Well, you boys had better get ready to jump. Parachutes on, up on your feet, lads, chop chop.”

She turns on her heel and then climbs back into her seat at the front, winking at Steve as she goes.

Steve grins at her, wide, and her red lips smile back before she turns to the front. It’s as close to a goodbye as they ever get. 

Steve stands first and then everybody’s up and strapping their packs on, parachutes and guns and dry goddamn rations. 

Bucky starts humming, a familiar and jaunty tune, bouncing on his toes as he straps his pack on. Steve laughs and reaches over to help him with the last few buckles and joins in the humming.

“Oh, fuck you,” Morita sighs. “That’ll be rattling around in my head for a month now.” 

“What?” Dernier asks, a little muffled, the strap to his gun dangling from his teeth.

“You know, that paratrooper song,” Morita says.

Dernier just stares at him, no answering.

“Jesus fuck,” Bucky says, “how do you not know this.”

“Ain’t you Jewish?” Dum Dum says.

Bucky ignores him. “Here, here, it’s a sin you don’t know this,” he says, and then starts singing, his deep voice hitting against the metal walls of the shaking plane and bouncing back, darkly cheerful. “He counted long, he counted loud, he waited for the shock! He felt the wind, he felt the clouds, he felt the awful drop!”

Steve jumps in, finally finishing the last of Bucky’s straps and settling his helmet on his head. “He jerked his cord, the silk spilled out, and wrapped around his legs—”

Together, they finish gleefully: “And he ain’t gonna jump no more!”

Gabe throws his head and laughs wildly, wrapping an arm around Morita who looks equally gleeful. “Gory, gory, what a helluva way to die!” They cheer, swaying back and forth.

“Gory, gory, what a helluva way to die,” Dum Dum and Falsworth echo, straightening their packs.

Dernier joins in for the last repetition, all of them lining up at the mouth of the plane.

“Gory, gory, what a helluva way to die!” They laugh, the mouth opening up and bitter cold wind rushing in.

Steve and Bucky step up to the edge, their toes poking over, miles and miles over the dark trees of Northern Denmark.

“And he ain’t gonna jump no more,” Bucky breathes, and then steps over the edge with Steve, the cold wind screaming, screaming, screaming on their way down.

-~-

Gabe

Everyone comes out of it fine, of course, because they’re not green fucking idiots, but it gets dicy a couple times. Near everyone gets tangled up in the trees, because how the fuck could they avoid them? They’ve all got to cut their way out with Barnes’s knife, which they toss across the treetops to each other. 

“Fuck, Barnes, be careful with that,” Gabe spits, when the knife impales itself into the tree next to his head.

“You weren’t fuckin’ gonna catch it, how the hell else was I gonna get it to you?” Barnes says, trying to climb down his own tree and failing. He slips on snow and lands with a thump on the ground, flat on his back.

“Ha!” Dernier laughs, gleeful, and when Gabe looks he’s shimmying down his own tree, only sliding a little. 

“God, you know, we’d have been fucked if there were any Krauts around, y’all ever think of that?” Dum Dum says. “Just strung up here like meat in a butchery. Jesus.”

“Think they’d eat us?” Falsworth asks idly, rocking himself back and forth like he’s laying in a hammock and not caught in his parachute. 

Morita gags dramatically, holding onto the underside of a branch like a sloth, or a pissy cat.

“Fuck, I hope they’d make me into a steak,” Barnes says. “I’d kill for a fucking steak.” He stands and trudges over to where Rogers is sitting, his back to a tree, watching all of them struggle like an asshole because he ripped out of his parachute with his goddamn science-engineered muscles like a fucking piece of shit. Fuck, these strings are hard to cut through.

“When the fuck did you have a goddamn steak?” Rogers says.

“In Manhattan, you weren’t there.” Barnes says, his nose in the air.

Rogers rolls his eyes. “You’ve never had a fucking steak in your life.”

“Fuck off,” Barnes says, digging through his pockets for a cigarette.

Gabe ignores them and starts sawing harder. 

Dum Dum is spinning slowly in circles, caught on the branch of a gigantic pine tree and hanging, suspended, like a man in a noose. 

“Give me that fucking knife, Jones,” Dum Dum says, and Gabe stares at him calmly and then continues sawing his way out of his own parachute. 

“Aw, fuck you,” Dum Dum sighs, and then the wind turns him so he can’t stare at Gabe anymore, which suits Gabe fine. 

The last of Gabe’s strings snap and he lands hard on his feet, the snow coming up to his knees and slowly soaking through his pants. He gives a deep, long sigh, because he sure as fuck didn’t sign up for all this goddamn _snow._ Barnes and Rogers don’t even look bothered by it, just sitting flat on their asses under a pine, shoulder to shoulder and watching them all struggle. Jesus fuck, fucking white boys and their fucking snow _._ Gabe’s balls feel frostbit just looking at them. 

He tosses the knife up to Falsworth, who catches it easily while Dum Dum flips him off. Morita spits at him, as good as he can, still holding onto his branch. He starts scooting toward the trunk of his tree like a worm, ass hanging down low. Gabe whistles at him and Morita lets go of the branch with one hand to flip him off and then grabs back on, frantic, when he starts slipping.

Rogers and Barnes howl with laughter, near falling over with it. 

Eventually they all make it down into the snow. Dum Dum shoves some down the back of his jacket and Gabe shoves him into a tree before they all circle up, heads close together, around a creased map that Rogers produces from his pack. 

They all stare at it for a while before Barnes breaks the silence. 

“Where the fuck are we?”

Everybody turns to look at Rogers, who frowns down at the map, his strong jaw flexing, his blond hair catching the late winter light. He traces his fingers over the faded blue rivers, the drawn mountain-tops.

“Fuck if I know,” he says, and then everybody starts hollering at once.

Gabe takes off his helmet and chucks it at him, Morita following right behind. Rogers dodges, bringing the map up over his face like that’s going to help anything. Dum Dum’s helmet tears straight through the map and hits Rogers’s nose, which starts bleeding, the map dropping down into the snow. The ink starts bleeding, melting against the damp cold so quick it’s impossible to save. 

Everyone freezes.

“Shit,” Dum Dum says, and then everyone’s yelling at him, too. 

Barnes takes off his fucking boot and throws it, knocks Dum Dum in his helmetless head. Dum Dum lands hard on his ass in the snow and Falsworth jumps on him, rubs his face in it. 

Dernier saunters up next to Gabe and leans against his shoulder. 

_“_ We will die out here in this ugly forest and it will serve us right for being idiots,” he says.

Gabe just shrugs and shivers, watching the boys roll around in the snow. Barnes is in on the action now, too, and is shoveling snow down the back of Dum Dum’s pants, Dum Dum’s pasty ass shining whiter than the snow.

“Hey!” Rogers says, his voice snapping across the cold air. “Hey, assholes, pull it together! Jesus, we’ve got our compasses, and I’ve got other fucking maps!” 

“Do you?” Barnes says, his head popping up from the snow like some sort of murderous daisy.

“Well,” Rogers says.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Barnes says. 

_“You’re fucking Jewish!”_ Dum Dum hollers, launching himself at Barnes. Barnes catches him with one arm and wrestles him back down into the snow easily, not even sweating. Falsworth climbs onto Dum Dum’s chest and stays there.

“I don’t know why you’re so caught up about that, pal, I can swear however the fuck I want,” Barnes tells him. 

“Lord Almighty,” Rogers sighs, and then moves to break them up. 

Gabe breathes in, deep and long, thinking wistfully about the Bayou behind his grandmama’s house, and the thick summer nights, and the crawfish dinners.

-~-

Bucky

Eventually they just start walking south, because fucking Steve can’t remember where the fucking fucked up readings were coming from, and everyone figures it’s gonna take months to walk back to base, anyway, so what’s the fucking point of dicking around in the goddamn Danish wilderness? By the time they get back Phillips will have forgotten why he sent them away in the first place. 

“You alright, Buck?” Steve says from where he’s marching on Bucky’s left. 

“Oh, just fuckin’ peachy,” Bucky tells him. 

“Aw, come on, you can’t be mad at me. None a that was my fault!”

“I damn well can,” Bucky hisses. “You mean to tell me you didn’t bother to look at that map at all before we left? Fucking goddamn photographic memory and you don’t bother to fucking use it, fuck.” 

“I’m gonna write your Ma, and she’s gonna come all the way over here to wash your fucking mouth out with soap, see if she doesn’t,” Steve tells him, and Bucky shivers, involuntary. 

“Fuck off.” 

Steve waits him out.

“Please don’t rat me out to Ma,” Bucky says. 

Steve tosses his head back and laughs. Bucky can’t do anything but grin back at him and watch the way Steve’s new, strong body steps through the snow, tireless and elegant. He misses Steve, misses the little guy he could tuck under his arm and hide and protect, but every day he misses him a little less. Every day it gets easier to stare at this new, shiny Steve and notice that he still smiles the same, and that his nose is still crooked, and that he still loves Bucky best outta everything in the whole fuckin’ world. 

Steve tosses an arm around his shoulder and reels him in, and now it’s Bucky being tucked up under an arm, hidden and protected, and Bucky thinks, _yeah. Easier every day._

“Secret’s safe with me, Buck,” Steve promises.

Bucky rolls his eyes. “Yeah, whatever, you’re just scared I’d tell her about you breaking her good china back when we were nine.”

 _“You wouldn’t,_ ” Steve hisses.

Bucky shoves him and Steve stumbles into a tree and Bucky doesn’t worry about bruising or cracked ribs even a little.

Yeah. Easier every fucking day.

“Are you boys going to tell us where we’re going anytime soon, or are we all just going to march until we die?” Dernier says, his voice floating up from behind them.

When Bucky glances back, all the Howlies look dead on their feet, swiping under their noses to catch dripping snot and slogging through the snow like they’ve been walking for years instead of hours. They’re walking in a line, Dum Dum then Gabe then Dernier then Morita then Falsworth, and stepping in Bucky and Steve’s footprints.

“When’re we making camp, my fuckin’ hands are about to freeze off,” Dum Dum grumbles.

Gabe groans in agreement, blowing on his fingers. 

“Fuckin’ babies,” Bucky says. “We’ve only been marching for, fuckin’, an hour or something.” 

“Fuck off, Barnes, it’s been ages. It’s fuckin’ dark out here,” Morita says. “I need a fucking tent.”

Now that Bucky’s looking, it is dark, and they must’ve been walking for a while. He just can’t feel it. He’s not tired at all, is barely cold, can still see perfectly fine. He’s hungry as hell but he always is, these days, so that means shit all. 

Fucking goddamn Hydra scientists. Shit.

Beside him, Steve shrugs. “Yeah, there’s some sort a… do you call it a field?”

“You don’t know the fuckin’ word clearing?” Gabe says.

“What the fuck do I look like?” Steve asks. “Fine, there’s a fuckin’ clearing up ahead, we can roll out the tents there.”

So they do. Steve and Bucky huddle together under a tree and look through the rest of the maps while the Howlies set up their tents. Gabe and Dernier finish quickest, hustling inside their tent before anyone else even has their stakes in the ground. 

“Goodnight, mes amis!” Dernier calls, cheerful, before zipping the flap firmly shut and trapping the heat inside. 

“Fuck off,” Dum Dum swears, sweating and trying to wrestle his tent’s stakes through the snow and into the frozen ground.

“Let me help, you asshole,” Morita says, taking the mallet from him. “Jesus, and you call yourself a strongman.” 

Falsworth gets his tent pitched next and Morita abandons Dum Dum to climb inside and out of the wind. He gives a cheerful wave before zipping his tent closed, Dum Dum cussing him out all the while. 

“Can I get a hand here, fellas?” Dum Dum calls, and Bucky looks up from the maps to flip him off. 

“I’ll help, Dum Dum,” Steve says, rolling his eyes at Bucky before walking over and stomping the stakes into the ground with his boots. 

“O Captain, my Captain,” Dum Dum says, before diving inside. 

Steve comes back to their tree and sits down in the snow. Bucky follows him, feels the cold seep into his pants and discovers he doesn’t mind. Steve spreads the maps out over both their legs, above the snow, and their knees touch, the toes of their boots knocking together.

Technically, Dum Dum and Bucky are supposed to share a tent and leave Steve one all to himself, what with Steve being the captain, and all that. 

They never do. The first night they were all out in the field together, setting up tents, the Howlies crawled in and fell asleep while him and Steve were up planning, and talking, and laughing under their breaths, and Bucky never made it into Dum Dum’s tent. Nobody said shit about it, either. Just accepted that was how it was gonna be and didn’t kick up any fuss about it.

Fuck, but sometimes Bucky loves his boys. 

Beside him, Steve sighs, bent over the big map of Europe and the littler maps of Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. 

“What a fucking mess,” Steve says, his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. 

Bucky huffs in agreement, flipping his knife between his fingers. 

“We landed somewhere near Aalborg, right?”

Steve hums and this time Bucky sighs. 

“A thousand miles away,” Steve says, his blue eyes bright against the black Danish sky. A thousand, a million shining stars twinkle above him, more stars than Bucky’s ever seen in his whole damn life. They make Steve’s hair go yellow like sunshine, or gold, or the sweet banana pudding Steve’s Ma had made when they finished the eighth grade. 

Bucky puts his hand over Steve’s on the pile of maps, squeezes him through their gloves.

“Sweetheart,” he says. “It’s gonna be fine.”

“We’ve gotta march through fuckin’ Germany, Buck. And then through most of fucking occupied Europe! And then through _France,_ which is also _fucking occupied!”_

“Least once we hit Germany we’ll know where we’re going,” Bucky offers.

It’s true, too. They’ve taken out so many Hydra bases in Germany that they practically know the place front-to-back. 

“Nothing for it but to keep walking,” Steve agrees. 

Bucky squeezes his hand again. Steve turns his over and catches Bucky’s fingers, the hold comfortable like it’s always been.

“Let’s go to bed,” Bucky says, quiet so the Howlies don’t hear. “Come to bed, sweetheart, let me warm you up.” 

“You think you’re so smooth,” Steve grumbles, but he lets Bucky pull him up and into the tent, lets Bucky lay him down on his cot and climb on top of him, one leg on the ground for balance.

Steve lets Bucky kiss him, too, and Bucky does, as sweet and slow as he can. Steve’s the one to add tongue, but then, he usually is. Can’t ever let anybody be sweet to him. Used to drive Bucky nuts, used to make him mad at the whole world, but now Bucky just lets him do it, lets himself go slack on Steve’s chest and kiss him, and kiss him, and kiss him, their tent slowly warming, the air inside becoming damp and thick. 

Steve’s tongue strokes over his again, and again, and again, until Bucky’s got to move his hips or die from it. Bucky grinds on Steve, on his thigh, and Steve lets him do it, and swallows down all the noises Bucky makes. 

It’s good. It’s always so good with Steve.

“Fuck, but I love you, kid,” Bucky breathes.

Steve kisses down his jaw and onto his neck, bites and bites there until Bucky’s shaking. Bucky’s hips are really working, now, and a little part of him thinks the cot might break beneath them but the rest of him is so worked up he can’t care. Fuck, he needs to come, needs to come right now.

“You gonna come in your pants?” Steve asks, pulling away from his neck. “‘Cause I don’t know how good an idea that is, Buck. No place to wash ‘em out here, after all.”

“Nngh,” Bucky says, his hips pushing, pushing, pushing down into Steve’s thigh. He just can’t fuckin’ _stop_ , and shit, but it’s been ages since he felt this desperate, since he needed just to hump and hump until it was all over. He feels like a kid again. 

Steve’s hands clap down on his ass and Bucky fucking whines, and now Steve’s groaning, too, and grinding back. Which, fuck, is more like it.

“Yeah, Stevie, come on, come on, come _o-oh, shit._ ” Bucky moans at the end, because his dick is lined up with the edge of Steve’s hip _just right_ and he can’t fucking take it.

He thrusts, and thrusts, his boots scrabbling against the cold ground and his hands scrabbling across Steve’s broad chest. Fuck, he’s gonna come, he’s gonna come, he’s _gonna—_

Steve’s fingers trip over Bucky’s nipple, rough through his shirt, and that’s it.

Bucky humps up, desperate, and comes and comes, Steve’s hand over his mouth like it usually is, because fuck if Bucky can’t be loud when he wants to be. Shit, it feels so good, it’s so good, it’s _so—_

Bucky thinks he might’ve blacked out a little, because next thing he knows, he’s on his back, alone on the cot, and Steve’s got his pants around his knees, caught there by his belt and his army boots, and is jerking off, his knees trembling. He stands over Bucky, his fist flying, his head tilted back but his eyes locked on Bucky.

“Come on, baby,” Bucky says, still panting.

And Steve does.

The next morning, Bucky stands ass naked in the field, scrubbing at his pants and underwear with snow while the rest of the Howlies sob with laughter and Steve grins at him, sly as an alley cat.


	2. looking back to see

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An Avengers interlude.

Natasha

Natasha remembers the fighting and she remembers the sorcerer with the orange hands soaring over them all, face lit up and glowing like a devil from a child’s story. 

Tony, beside her, is half out of his suit and bleeding, and shouting up at the sorcerer. “Come on, kid,” he calls, “it’s in the past. Wrecking everything now won’t fix it!”

“In the past,” the kid spits, his dark hair flying around him, his tears wet on his face. “In the past, in the fucking past! What the fuck do you know about it? Huh?”

The kid throws his head back and laughs, a little crazy, and Natasha takes a step back, searching for Clint. She finds him two steps behind her, his bow raised, his eyes locked on the kid’s mouth. His hearing aids must’ve been blown out again. 

Bruce stumbles up out of the wreckage of the forest, no longer the Hulk, holding his pants up with one hand. 

She can’t find James, or Steve.

In front of them, the kid glows bright, then brighter, and then everything goes dark.

-~-

Bruce

They manage to get captured immediately, because of course they do. It’s just how his life goes, it’s just typical. Just fucking typical.

Bruce trudges along, wrapped in a fucking Nazi coat because the soldiers that found them didn’t want him to freeze to death before they could get them to a base and run their experiments. He’s here, in the middle of the German forest, walking on a dirty road, in fucking _1941,_ in a _Nazi jacket_ and there is nothing he can do, because he can’t find the Hulk. It’s quiet inside his mind, and peaceful, for the first time in fucking years, and the one time he needs the Hulk, he’s gone, because this is how his life goes.

Fucking typical. 

Tony’s walking beside him, one hand on his elbow like Tony thinks he’s going to protect him. It’s kind of funny, but Bruce doesn’t laugh because Tony is pale and his eyes are almost black, and ringed with deep purple circles. Behind them, Clint and Natasha march, perfectly in time, and it’s clear that the Nazis know that they’re some type of soldiers.

Him and Tony can probably pass as scientists. They are scientists.

He can’t believe this is happening.

They’ve been walking for three days, and every day feels longer than the last. It’s quiet, and tense, because they’re not allowed to talk, and when there is noise it’s gunfire. Bruce just takes deep breaths and tells himself it’s not much different from being a field medic in Palestine. 

Tony flinches at every gunshot. 

A soldier barks something in German and Bruce swings his head around. The soldier’s trying to talk to Clint, who is staring at him, blank.

“I don’t speak German, man,” Clint says, even though Bruce knows he does.

Clint must not have had time to read the soldier’s lips.

The soldier stares at him, suspicious, and then brings the butt of his gun cracking down onto Clint’s nose. The soldier walks off and Clint brings up a hand to catch the blood dripping from his chin. 

“Aw, time travel, no,” Clint sighs. 

They keep marching.


	3. the crowd's eyes open, amazed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Worlds collide. Steve and Bucky are as they have always been. Some folks have problems coming to terms with that.

Steve

They sneak past the Danish border and into Germany, dodging between patrol cars and through check points. For a while, they’re springing from treetop to treetop like fucking monkeys, clinging to the branches and hoping the fucking goddamn Nazi sons of bitches don’t look up. Shit, but this is the worst mission in the world, and when Steve gets back to base he’s going to give Phillips a piece of his fucking mind, see if he doesn’t. 

It’s a miracle that they don’t get spotted, and Steve knows a miracle when he sees one, so when they’re far enough away they feel like they can stop running, he kneels down, crosses himself, and thanks Mary and Saint Jude.

Bucky, beside him, is doing his version of the same thing: he’s staring up at the sky, hands raised, and cussing out God and Moses and Abraham, shaking his fists, his face red. 

“If you two are finished,” Morita says, wry, dusting the smoke off from his jacket.

“Fuck off,” Bucky says, flipping off the cloudy sky. 

“You’re gonna get struck down,” Falsworth says admiringly.

“I’m Jewish,” Bucky says. “That doesn’t happen to us.” 

Steve rolls his eyes and stands, pulling out his map. So, they’re in Germany, finally. It’s a small border, the line between Denmark and Germany, so there’s only so many places they can be. Steve squints down, trying to figure out where they are on the map, before giving up. Are they East or West? Can he actually smell the ocean or is he just hallucinating? Fuck, but he’ll just have to figure it out later. 

“Come on, boys,” he says, tucking the useless map away just in case he wants to stare at it again later. “We’re heading South-West.” 

They keep walking, the Howlies stepping fast and lively now that they’re in fuckin’ Germany itself.

“You know, you gotta think, though, I mean, there’s gotta be no fuckin’ Germans left over here,” Dum Dum says. “They’re fuckin’ everywhere else. Fuck, boys, I’ll bet this is the easiest leg of the journey! No Krauts left at home to trip us up. They’re all off in fuckin’ France or where the fuck ever. We’ll be living the high life!”

The Howlies let out approving noises, little chuckles and a couple low whistles. They’re moving through the trees like wolves, heads down, guns out, dangerous and hungry.

“Let a fuckin’ Jerry cross me,” Bucky says. “See where that gets ‘em.” He grins, and his knife is back in his hand, flipping over his fingers. 

The boys howl back at him, egging him on. 

Steve shakes his head but lets himself grin. “What’re you gonna do, huh?” He asks.

“Fuck, I’ll use a fuckin’ Nazi head as one a those— those fuckin’— what’re those things you use when you’re playin’ golf, huh?”

“A tee?” Falsworth offers.

“Thank you,” Bucky says, “I’ll use their head like a goddamn golf tee, send their skull flying all the way to the fuckin West Indies, see if I don’t.”

“I don’t think that’s how golf works, Sarge,” Morita says, lighting one of his last cigarettes. 

“I don’t give a good goddamn,” Bucky says. 

“I’d kill ‘em and take their socks,” Gabe says, gloomily. “Fuck, maybe their boots. I miss havin’ fucking dry feet.”

“What’d you do, Cap?” Dum Dum says, twirling his moustache and grinning like a devil.

Steve shrugs. “Dunno.”

“Aw, leave him alone, boys, you know he’s sensitive,” Bucky says, and then keeps talking. “I’d buy a tiger, right, and I’d get it all hooked on the taste a humans, and then I’d toss those Nazi bastards in with it. Or, fuck, no, I’d—”

Bucky goes on and on like that, inventing crazier and crazier scenarios just to keep the boys laughing. Steve shakes his head and tries not to smile. Reminds himself of what he told Erskine: that he didn’t want to kill anyone. And it’s mostly true. Almost completely true. He doesn’t like killing, doesn’t like the feel of it, or the smell of it, or the way it gets stuck behind his teeth.

But fuck if he doesn’t look at Bucky and want to tear the whole world up by its roots, sometimes.

-~-

Bucky

They don’t make it far before they come up on a Hydra base, only a handful of miles before it’s looming, tall and gray and burnable, in front of them. The trees loom, empty and silent, around them, nothing around for miles and miles. Nothing but them, and the base, and the Nazis inside it. Bucky stares, takes a slow breath, and waits.

Steve rocks back on his heels and crosses his arms.

“Now, hold on, let’s think about this,” Bucky says.

“I am thinkin’,” Steve protests.

“Thinkin’ you’d like to light the place up, yeah, pal, I know. Me too. But we torch it and they know we’re here, we got Hydra motherfuckers on our asses all the way back to France.” Bucky shakes his head.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, nah, you’re right,” Steve says, jerking his head up and down. There’s a pause. “But they couldn’t chase us if we torched them, too.”

Bucky’s fingers twitch. “Well, there’s a point.”

Steve raises his eyebrows at him, asking for, fuck, for permission. Bucky could call this whole fool plan off right now, if he wanted. He would if he were smart.

“Whaddaya say, boys,” Bucky calls, turning to face the Howlies. “Wanna light these Hydra bastards up?” 

Bucky’s only ever done one smart thing in his life, which, to be fair to him, is more’n Steve’s done. Either way, this is a bozo’s idea, and Bucky’s heading in there guns blazing.

Dum Dum throws his big head back and howls up at the slowly rising moon, the bare trees casting long shadows across his face. The rest of the Howlies follow, tossing their wind-bit heads back and giving long, high cries, the perfect mimic of a pack of wolves. It’s a neat party trick, gets them free drinks over at the British pubs, and it gets Bucky’s blood rushing like nothing else. 

Bucky leans his head back and stares at the sky. Steve comes to stand at his shoulder and does the same. He presses his hand against Bucky’s, his fingers somehow warm even in the freezing cold.

The one smart thing Bucky’s ever done is sticking with Steve.

“Let’s get ‘em,” Gabe says, white teeth glowing in the dark.

Everyone falls in line on either side of Steve, Bucky on his left and Morita on his right, Gabe, Falsworth, Dum Dum, and Dernier behind them. And then, suddenly, Steve’s not Steve anymore, he’s Captain goddamn America, shield on his arm and larger than life, kicking down the enforced iron door like it’s made of rotting plywood. 

Bucky follows right beside him, not wasting any time. He’s shooting before he sees anything, aiming at nothing but hitting bodies all the same. It’s easy, now, it’s so easy he barely has to look. Doesn’t have to track anything, just sees it all like he’s standing back and watching, calm as anything, like him and Steve are at the movies, not thinking at all. He shoots at shadows and hits men, and the floor turns red quicker than anything. Everything goes slick and bloody and he follows as Steve plows ahead, stepping over bodies the same way he steps over logs.

Steve’s got that vicious smile on his face, the one that’s all back-alley bar fight glee, and he’s takin’ down Krauts like it’s his only pride and pleasure. Metal sings and screeches each time he tosses his shield, and Bucky bares his teeth eagerly. The boys whoop and holler, guns firing, vicious glee taking them over. Fuck these Jerry bastards. 

_Fuck_ these Jerry bastards.

Bucky reloads. Bucky fires. 

Behind him, his boys howl like wolves. 

-~-

Clint

“What the fuck is that,” Natasha says.

Clint can hear it, too, which is how he knows it’s loud as fuck. There’s crashing and shouting coming from above them, and something that sounds like wolves? Wolves howling? Clint thinks that’s probably just him being mostly-deaf, except when he glances over at the others, their faces are ghost pale. 

He avoids looking at the other prisoners, Nazi scientists all of them, who had donned ripped clothes minutes before and locked themselves inside the free cells, faces blank and sweating. 

“Goddamn,” Clint whistles, impressed. “Are we about to be eaten by wolves?”

“Clint, please,” Bruce sighs from the cell next to Clint and Natasha’s, then rubs his temples anxiously.

“That’s not a no,” Clint points out. 

“Shut the fuck up,” Tony hisses, leaning on Bruce’s shoulder. 

A floor-shaking rattle comes, and then another, then a third, like a series of miniature explosions. Screaming follows quickly, then quiets, then comes again. It goes like that for a long time: gunfire, explosions, hollering and cheering and shrieking. Clint can’t decide if it sounds like a party up there or hell on Earth. Maybe some of both.

In the other cells, the Hydra scientists sit, still and quiet like the grave. None of them flinch at the explosions, or the guns. But sometimes a particularly piercing and cheerful cry will come, and one of them will twitch.

“Wish Thor were here,” Clint says, gloomily. “Or Steve. They’d break us out of this shitty-ass jail. Look at these bars! Look at how thin these are! They’d do it in two seconds. Maybe less.”

“Clint,” Natasha says, hair curling from the sweat and cold. She glances at him, frowning, and then sighs. The corner of her mouth quirks. “It would be nice,” she agrees, wistful.

_“Please_ shut the fuck up,” Tony says. “Look, I even said it nicely.”

“You wanna sit here in silence and wait for all that to come to us? In silence?” Clint asks, staring at Tony’s mouth, wondering if he read it wrong. “Who the fuck are you? Did you get fucking body-snatched? Jesus Christ.”

Natasha nudges her hand against Clint’s and Clint takes her fingers between his. Her palm is small and calloused and warm, and he settles more comfortably against the cold cement wall. Around them, the darkness shakes and booms. 

“We’re going to die here,” Tony breathes.

“Shut the fuck up,” Clint responds. 

“Oh, _now_ you don’t want to talk—” Tony spits.

Bruce sighs.

The noise drifts closer, if something this loud and cacophonous can drift. Clint leans his head back and Natasha settles hers on his shoulder. He breathes in, heart pounding, and she echos it.

In the other cells, the Hydra scientists sit, blank eyed, mouths open like fish. Clint stares at them and hopes they die, when the people upstairs come. And then he realizes that himself and the rest of the Avengers are locked in with them, and that Bruce is wearing a fucking Nazi uniform, and the odds of everyone making it out of this are slim to fucking nil. 

The corner of his mouth twitches. “We’re so fucked,” he whispers, just to Nat.

She snorts. 

Clint gazes at the stairs as well as he can, in the flickering light. He watches the door.

The boom, boom, boom travels closer, the howling rising to a fever pitch. Cheering comes, and laughter, and someone is hollering to _get a move on, boys, we’ve got a lotta ground to cover—_

_Ain’t no one else here,_ another voice returns.

_Well, time to go on and check that basement, then,_ the first responds.

Clint breathes. Natasha breathes. Bruce and Tony huddle together, and in the dark the whites of Tony’s eyes are huge and glowing. 

The Hydra scientists don’t move, and Clint thinks, _fine. If I’m going out, at least you motherfuckers are coming with me._

The door flies open, light pouring in like water from a hose, and Clint squeezes his eyes shut, blinded. Beside him, Natasha hisses, and he hears Tony curse. 

“Oh, shit,” someone says, and it’s nobody Clint knows. He peeks one eye open and gazes up the steps, straining his eyes. There’s someone standing there, silhouetted, and he calls over his shoulder, “Cap, Sarge, we’ve got folks down here!”

“What _kind_ of folks, Morita!” A familiar voice grouses, and what the fuck?

“Do I look like I fucking know?” Morita complains. “The prisoner kind, fuck you. Except coupla them have Kraut jackets on, so beats me.”

“Can’t have one fuckin’ thing,” the familiar voice says, and Jesus Christ, it can’t be—

It is. 

Bucky Barnes comes to stand at Morita’s shoulder, hair short and jaw shaved, eyes gleaming in the light. He’s got blood on his cheeks, a gun in his hand, iconic blue jacket slung casually across his shoulders. When he starts down the stairs, his boots clunk, clunk, clunk ominously. 

“Fuck,” Tony says, taken aback. 

Clint agrees. 

Barnes’ gaze sweeps over them, not a lick of recognition on his face. Nothing familiar in his eyes, nothing. He doesn’t know them.

Natasha breathes in sharply, and Clint squeezes her hand with his. She squeezes it back.

“Well, fuckin’ damn it, Morita,” Barnes says cheerfully. 

Morita shrugs, claps him on the shoulder, and then hollers, “c’mon in, boys!”

A man with a bushy moustache comes up at Morita’s shoulder, slings an arm around him, and joyfully exclaims, “can’t, everyone else is upstairs.” And suddenly all of Clint’s seventh-grade American history comes rushing at him, and he remembers, oh; that’s Dum Dum Dugan. 

“There’s an upstairs?” Barnes and Morita chorus, gleeful.

Another controlled explosion shakes the foundations of the lab, and, in the second cell, Bruce buries his face in his arms. 

“Not anymore,” Dugan grins.

“Miss all the fucking fun,” Barnes complains, and Morita agrees with a sour _hm._ Both of them scowl at Dugan. 

“Ah, hello,” Tony interrupts with a bright smile on his face. Clint tosses his head back and starts banging it against the wall. “If you two could get us out of here, that’d be—” 

Barnes snorts, amused, in chorus with the other two Commandos standing at his shoulders. “Not a chance,” he says, eyeing Tony.

A clatter comes, and then a herd of boots clomping across the cement floors, ringing, and then four more men come to crowd the doorway, blocking the light. “Oh, good,” says a mild and well-known voice. “Found ‘em.”

And, just like that, Steve Rogers is standing in front of them. His bright suit is mostly covered by army greens, practical cargo pants and sturdy black boots. All of him is flecked with blood and mud, his hair wild and sticky. He’s haloed by the light in the doorway, and his eyes gleam. 

Steve claps a hand on Barnes’ shoulder and nudges him aside. He stalks down the stairs like a lion or something else that’s big and hungry, and the rest of the Commandos follow, Barnes first and then the rest of them in a sturdy line, all grinning. 

Their smiles are sharp like knives, and are eager in the dark. They fan out, posting up at the edges of the room, dragging over boxes and chairs, collapsing with their guns on their knees. Steve sets his hands on his hips and Barnes goes to him, leaning in to whisper at his ear. 

“Alright, boys,” Steve says, when Barnes is finished. “Let’s get started.”

Barnes cackles, claps him on the shoulder, then collapses onto an overturned ammunitions crate, eyes twinkling cheerfully, knife in his hand. He looks between Clint and Natasha’s cell, then Tony and Bruce’s, then down the long line of cells filled with disguised Hydra scientists. 

Around the room, the Commandos stomp their feet and clap the buts of their guns against the concrete ground. Steve watches, his eyes blue and piercing, his canines gleaming in the dim basement light.

“We’re so fucked,” Clint whispers again, and Natasha snorts quietly, acknowledging.

-~-

Tony

Tony jerks his head back and forth, watching incredulously through the bars of his cell. Jesus, but they’re right here, they’re _right here,_ Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes in their annoying, familiar, miracle-working flesh.

He barely notices two of the Commandos unlocking the cell to his left and guiding five Hydra scientists to the front of the room, the empty space where Steve and Barnes wait. 

Barnes has a knife in one hand, twirling it and twirling it, and his feet kicked up on a box, Steve standing behind him with his arms crossed, casual as anything. More casual than Tony’s ever seen him. The rest of the Howling Commandos are split: two of them are guarding the entrance, and the other three have the five Hydra scientists down on the ground, their guns pointed and steady. 

“You,” Steve says. “C’mon over here.”

He’s looking at a Hydra soldier with a straight nose and weak jaw. He’s the second in from the right.

The soldier doesn’t move.

“Don’t be shy, pal,” Barnes says, flipping his knife over and over. “You can come and sit right here next to me, how’s that sound?”

Slowly, the soldier rises to his feet, takes a couple stumbling steps over, and sits right in front of Barnes. Barnes tosses the knife over his shoulder to Steve who— who fucking _catches_ it, and twirls it the same as Barnes. Tony’s heart catches in his chest, and it’s dark, and damp, and his arc reactor pulses, and suddenly he’s back in a cave, miles and years away from here. 

“Hey,” Tony calls. “Go easy, I don’t want to watch any torture before dinner. Gives me indigestion."

“Tony,” Bruce whispers, his eyes wide. “Tony, don’t—”

Every single one of the Howling Commandos glares at him, Steve and Barnes right behind them.

“We should leave this one here,” one of them— the Black one, fuck what was his name, Tony knew it, he _knew it_ but he can’t find it.

“No room for Nazi sympathizers in the wagon,” the one in the bowler hat, _Dum Dum,_ it’s got to be Dum Dum, says. 

“We do not have a fucking wagon,” the French one says, fuck, fucking… Dernier? 

The soldier in front of Barnes and Steve looks up at them, sweating. “Please, Captain, I have heard you are a righteous man. Please do not do this, I have only been following orders.”

“Mm,” Barnes says, looking him over. “Following them real well, it looks like. Lookit all those medals on his coat, boys, don’t he look fancy?”

The Howling Commandos whistle and jeer. A couple of them give low howls, like wolves, and Tony briefly, frantically wonders if that’s where their name comes from. 

“Tony,” Natasha leans through the bars to hiss at him, so quiet he barely hears her. “Keep your fucking mouth shut. Do not talk anymore, do you hear me? Do not _fucking_ talk.”

Beside her, Clint nods, his eyes tracking over the scene in front of him, trying to read everyone’s lips. 

“Funny thing about righteous men,” Barnes says, “is they’re not all that nice, usually. How bout it, Stevie, you feelin’ nice today?”

“You know what?” Steve muses. “Not really.” He flips the knife back to Barnes, the sharp, silver metal of it arcing through the air and landing safely in Barnes’s palm. “Go wild, pal,” Steve finishes, and Barnes grins like a wolf, looking more like the Winter Soldier than Tony ever would’ve expected.

“So,” Barnes says, standing up and walking around the soldier, who cranes his head to try and keep Barnes in his sight. “You gonna tell us how to get from here to Kiel?” And then he shakes his head, like he’s had another, better thought. “Naw, scratch that. You gonna tell us where your bases are from here to Kiel?”

The weak-jawed man stares up at Barnes for a long moment and then spits at his feet. 

The Howling Commandos jeer, hitting their guns against the walls and metal bars of the cells, whistling low and mocking. Barnes just raises his eyebrows, looks at Steve. 

Steve stands and walks over to the man, then crouches down in front of him, balanced on his heels. Something in Tony’s chest relaxes. Yes, finally, Steve’s going to get this whole thing back under control. Thank God. 

“Please, Captain, let us be reasonable,” the German soldier says. “You and I are not so far apart. Both of us soldiers, both of us in charge of our men. The only difference is where we were born, eh? And that is not so much.”

Steve looks at him, calm as anything, a storm brewing in his blue eyes. “Pal, I couldn’t ever be you,” he says, tone as short and cutting as when he told Tony, _I know men worth ten of you,_ all those months and years ago.

And then Steve stares the Nazi soldier in his face and spits.

The Howling Commandos let out jeers and Barnes gives a little _whoop!_

Beside Tony, Bruce breathes, “holy shit.”

_Yeah,_ is all Tony can think through the shock. _Holy shit._

“Bucky,” Steve says, and just like that Barnes unholsters a pistol, lifts it, and shoots the soldier in the head. 

“Who’s feeling chatty?” Steve says, settling where Barnes had been sitting, before, and kicking his feet up.

When Tony glances over, Natasha and Clint are watching the scene intently, Natasha nodding occasionally and Clint slumped forward, eyes flicking so fast it’s impossible to know where he’s looking. Bruce claps a hand on Tony’s arm, squeezes tight, and then lets go. A warning. 

Tony nods his head slightly, an acknowledgement, and feels his heart pound and kick in his chest, his arc reactor humming. 

“You feelin’ chatty?” Barnes asks, kicking the butt of his sniper’s gun against one of the scientists’ chests. “Huh?”

Nobody speaks. 

Steve sighs. “Jesus, this is gonna be a long afternoon.” He doesn’t look too cut up about it, though. Rubbing a hand over his chin, Steve glances around the room, eyes lingering on the Commandos. He quirks a brow, mischievous, and Tony reaches out to grab Bruce’s shoulder. Bruce is clammy and sweating.

“Alright,” Steve says. “My cigarette ration to the first Howlie who makes one a these jailbirds sing.”

“Fuck it,” Barnes grins, kicking one of the men in the gut before circling back around to Steve and settling behind him, leaning down and crossing his arms against Steve’s broad shoulders. Steve takes his weight easily. “I’ll toss in my chocolate ration, too. Go wild, boys.”

“Think it’s Gabe’s turn to go first,” Steve muses, sprawling back against Barnes, relaxed as Tony’s ever seen him.

“Morita can go next,” Barnes confirms with a hum. 

And so Gabe— and shit, yeah, that’s his name, the black guy from before— steps up with a cheerful smile, whistling merrily. He flips out a knife, because apparently those are Commando uniform staples, and crouches toward one of the kneeling men. He stops in front of the Hydra scientist on the furthest left. Tony squeezes his eyes shut, bile crawling up his throat. 

“Whatsa matter, Gramps?” Barnes calls, and Tony, abruptly, realizes Barnes is talking to _him._ “Gabey-baby pickin’ on a buddy of yours?” 

Tony swallows hard and doesn’t answer. Barnes and Steve roll their eyes in unison and then ignore Tony entirely. Barnes jeers and stomps his feet against the hard cement floor and Steve calmly pulls out an intricately folded map.

The man screams. His fellows in the line with him flinch. The Hydra scientists in the other cells don’t react at all. Tony breathes in through his nose and regrets it. 

When the man’s eyes roll back in his head and he faints, Barnes and several other Commandos spit on the ground and Steve sighs.

“Fuckin’ Nazi coward,” Gabe Jones complains. He settles against a wall and another Commando claps him on the shoulder commiseratingly.

“I could have done better,” the Commando says.

“Fuck you, Dernier,” Gabe Jones says, then grins. 

“You know what?” Morita says, stepping forward. “Someone else can have the chocolate ration.” 

He pulls a pistol, cocks it, and shoots another Hydra scientist through the forehead. 

Barnes whoops and the Commandos toss their heads back and howl in approval. Two men are still kneeling, their faces whiter than snow, blood soaking into their pants.

“Jesus,” Tony breathes. “They’re murdering them.”

Bruce takes a shaky breath and doesn’t respond.

Steve’s head swings toward them, his face familiar and strong. He quirks a brow and grins at them, mocking and laughing and entirely different from the Steve that Tony knows, the one Tony argues with all the time. 

“It’s not murder if they’re Nazis,” Steve says. “Where you boys been?” He gazes at them, looking young and angry and so unfamiliar even though his face is the same, just the same it’s always been. 

“Not murder if they ain’t people,” Barnes agrees, then stands, fed up. He shoots the last two kneeling Hydra scientists in the head, _bang bang,_ quickly and with great pleasure. 

“Bring him out,” Steve says, still staring at Tony. “His friend, too.” 

_“Me?”_ Tony sputters, but one of the Commandos— and Jesus, how many are there? What the fuck is this one’s name, Falsworth?— is already hefting open his and Bruce’s cell.

“Uh,” Clint says, and Steve and Barnes swing their heads to look at him and Natasha. 

“Hm,” Steve says. 

“Hm,” Barnes agrees.

“Fuck,” Clint sighs. 

-~-


End file.
